HYDRA had upgraded their guns.
Unlike the usual bullet type that was easy to ignore, these new guns spat out wads of blue mass that squirmed, shuddered and collapsed into itself. I had not been on the end of those nozzles, but Red Skull (now completely in his horrifying ugly crimson glory) had gleefully showed the victims of the strange ammo. Well, what was left.
Every second I bothered to wake up was to three barrels trained to my direction and a massive gaping hole a few meters behind the guards. Schmidt had forced me to be there for the test run. Unlike the guns, this cannon shot beams that swallowed up at least ten captured POWs before the cannon shuddered and blew up. Judging by knitted brows on Red Skull's expression that was not supposed to happen.
Never the less, one still stood on the opposite side of the new cage. Unlike last time, this one was built with a darker shade of metal and lacked any bolts holding it down. It was less a cage and more of an actual room.
Either they thought that a cage wasn't good enough or that they were running out of space. But in the end, it was a little hard to escape without the off chance that those guns will do more damage than the healing ability can handle.
Slowly the room changes; things appear in the room. The guns change style. Lines of iron bars are drilled into circles, each circle marching down the room. The room expands outwards. More cells are added. People suddenly appear. Some stalk between the cells, some are kept in the cells.
The cells are numbered so many that it is hard to see the threating shadow of the cannon. The prisoners seldom talk, and never try to gain a response from a body drilled onto the wall. It is possibly they took me as HYDRA's warning to them; I suspect that they have simply run out of room to place them here.
The cells are peculiar; it was open at the top, although the bars stretched beyond any limit a human could climb equipment free – and besides, the POWs weren't fed so they had no strength to contemplate that idea. Then the next time I take interest there was a second floor over the circular cells, forever boxing them in. The floor wasn't solid; a grate, see through and surprisingly enough, HYDRA's cannon fodder seemed to walk on that rather than in-between the cells to taunt the captured men.
The second level wasn't used for keeping prisoners, rather strange machines that glowed the awful colour the guns shot when fired. Rows and rows of marching technology that had weird pipes sticking out from odd angles, yet all were identical.
The awful blue colour fed the machines; nothing came out but it seemed like they were storing the energy.
Everywhere I looked tickled something in my head. The surroundings were familiar. It felt like everything was coming together, like something had acted behind my back and was finally crawling out of the shadows. Yet nothing I saw stood out. Sometimes something stirs in my stomach when the cells are filled, but nothing happens, and they slowly empty before they're full again.
Then one day – a new regiment was captured.
It was nothing, another day in the life of a HYDRA guard, but unlike any of the other soldiers they captured, they did not speak French or Dutch; none of them spoke a lick of Polish or Finnish; spit a word of Russian or Spanish; understand a single syllable of Ukraine or Yiddish
But they spoke English (which was rare by itself) but their words were awash with the American accent (which I haven't heard in decades).
These Americans were rowdy, unlike any of the Jews they had taken or passive-aggressive like the British soldiers or quietly fuming French soldiers. They shouted obscene words to unfazed guards, rattled their cage's bars, climbed their way up to the metal grating that was the second floor.
Several times they tried to get my attention but the guards had gestured threating towards my midriff, so I didn't reply, much to the soldiers' disappointment. The old man who had been one of the first camping out in the same room as me probably would've died of a heart attack if I had.
But with this lively bunch of Americans also came a new scientist called Arnim Zola, who liked to take me out on lovely walks to his room. It would be disgusting if he didn't like experimenting on me to see if Erskine had left something inside my body. For some "odd" reason, he could never find anything. Maybe because there wasn't anything there to begin with.
But nevertheless, Zola thought he was onto something so I gained an experiment buddy. In the first few weeks, Zola was forever buzzing between us and his desk, trying to please Red Skull. As the days went by and he had nothing to show his boss, he frequently left the room and came back, hands shaking and sweat pouring down his neck.
During those times, the other man and I are left alone. Sometimes he's knocked out. Sometimes I'm knocked out. But every once in a while, we talk.
"Hah, hah, hah," his heavy breaths push against the iron walls, the sound seemingly growing louder with each breath despite the fact he was slowly catching his breath. His gasps stabilise, and he falls silent. Suddenly, the room his broken by his sobs. "Why me? Why was I chosen? I don't want to live anymore. I want to die."
His mantra continues; "I don't want this. Take me out of here. I'm scared. I want to go back to America. I want to see Steve again. I want to go home." He bursts into tears.
"I want to see Steve, and all I've got company is a dead body." At the mention of me, I turn my head, insulted, but he has his eyes screwed shut. I would talk, but Arnim Zola detached my tongue in the last round and it was regenerating at a snail's pace. I wait until he spots the fact that I have moved before I flip him the bird.
"Gah!" He screams and I roll my eyes. Looking back up to the ceiling. "You're a zombie!" He seemed to be shocked at my silence. I open my mouth and point to a lump in a jar next to my stomach. His face screwed up and he scooted to one side of the table as much as he could in his binds. I was too weak to stand up and sleep was already beckoning.
Light footsteps approach, but too soft for anyone but I to hear. I place one finger over my lips and return to the same posture he had left me in. He calls "Lady? Hey, lady?" a few more times, until the door bursts open and Arnim Zola picks up a knife and drives it into my leg, panting as he twists it around and around.
"HEY!" my fellow experiment shouts, straining to tear out of his bindings. I peak from beneath my eye lids to see Zola spin around to glower at the barely-a-man, a watery smirk playing across his features.
"Why give pity to a dead body? It's dead, it doesn't feel anymore." He snarls in German, the man still giving shouts at him. It was not hard to guess that neither spoke the same language. Evidently, this angers the small scientist as he picks up another sharp item and slowly draws it down my midriff, splitting open the skin to show my intestines and other gory organs.
The other man's shouts quieten off in minutes, as Zola takes his frustrations out on a supposedly dead body. To be honest, it wasn't the worst I had been through, and he was only one man after a decade of ten scientists torturing me at once. My pain reception was towards god-like levels.
After a few hours Zola gestures to a few people off screen and he leaves, the room blackening till nothing was left but the light seeping through a small window.
[x]
The man comes to with a gasp, head whipping to the side as he takes in his location. His breath quietens before tiny sobs break out, names of people I did not know sprouted between cries.
"Hey," I quietly say, returning my gaze back to the ceiling to give him some sense of privacy. "Couldn't ask you last time but what's your name?" He gasps a few times, before a small murmur escapes his lips.
"James," he says. "But I insist on being called Bucky."
"My parents said if I was born a boy I would've been called James." I give a weak grin to the roof. "But I'm a girl so they called me Lyall."
"Wait, wasn't your tongue cut out?" he calls, gesturing to the rotten muscle still resting in the jar. It had moved to the bench nearby, but it was still in clear view.
"Yep," I say cheerfully. "If you looked closely to this cut in the next few minutes, can you spot anything?"
He leans as close as he can and I try to bring my right arm out, but my energy is already sapped.
"It's… healing?" Bucky gasps, owlish eyes returning to mine.
"Yeah. I'm a mutant." He doesn't say anything but his face says everything. I try to give a laugh. "It's not surprising that you've never heard of us. Back in World War 1 there was about only two thousand found across the entire world. I'm not sure if more have been found or if they've all been killed in the previous war or this one."
"So you can heal yourself?" His voice is full of awe.
"Yes. If I could, I would show you my other mutation." I sigh, hearing the light footsteps of our tormentor. I place my finger on my lips again and return to my previous slouch, nearly instantly passing out as the door opens.
[x]
"Wait you're Bucky? And you're American?" he doesn't startle at the sudden question in the previous dead silence. Thank god Zola doesn't like having guards inside the room.
"Yes I am," I release one of the biggest breaths that I've held since Erskine escaped. "Do you know me?"
"No, not at all." I wave it off, leaving him shimmering in curiosity.
Bucky? That means – Captain –
[x]
I'm awoken by an explosion.
"Fucking finally," I sob, so relieved that I let a tear escape. Bucky blinks, still disoriented. He hasn't moved outside from the experiment room since he was brought inside, and he had been injected something in him – he hadn't woken up in days, much to the interest of the residential evil researcher.
"Lyall?" he coughs, tired eyes dropping closed.
"I hope to fucking hell that it's him." Bucky shifts, grunting. Small gasps of pain intervene the tiny prayers that tumble out of my mouth as he shifts in his binds. "I don't think I could…"
This time, heavy, fast-paced footstep thunder down the hallway outside the room. A flash of blue speeds past one of the doors and next second the door groans and is thrown open with a screech of metal against metal.
"Bucky?" a rough voice breaks through the grunts of pain.
"Steve? Steve? What are you doing here?" a small voice barely escapes his lips "Don't tell me I've gone mad?"
A man stomps over to Bucky, tearing the tethers to pieces without a sign of strain on his perfectly-created face. "Quick, we've got to leave."
"Whoa, what happened to you?" Bucky gasps as he sits up exercising muscles that haven't contracted or expanded in months.
"I joined the army," his voice hinted at a long story. I try to sit up but I can't draw on any energy. After that outburst before my eyes refused to open a crack. "Are you okay to run?"
"Yeah, but I'll have to carry Lyall," the table shudders as he leans heavily against the object holding me up. Tools squeak as he shoves them out of the way, a small grunt escaping my lips as he draws out several items out of my stomach. "Ew. It's like he didn't know you were alive. Then again, that's not hard to believe."
"Wait, she's alive?" Steve gasps, taking in the open wounds decorating my stomach and the one freshly severed leg. Arms slither under my stomach, carefully pushing upwards at my shoulder blades.
"Come on Lyall," he coxes as I try to summon energy to my limbs. "At least hold yourself up until I can piggy back you." It takes time, although Steve helped with his super-human strength, but finally Bucky and Steve left the room with myself draped against Bucky's back.
"Thank you," I breathe into his ear, tilting my head away to burrow down into his collarbone.
Despite the overwhelming darkness edging my vision, Bucky kept on jumping around and jolting me awake, shouts and explosions breaking through the impending sleep.
Several times I get shot. None of the bullets make it through my body, and I don't have enough energy to make a single sound of surprise or annoyance. Steve doesn't seem to understand that I am alive and awake the entire time. Bucky suspects, but I haven't made a peep since the first explosion.
It takes a few minutes before I realise that they're going up. It takes a few seconds to see that I'm finally above the grating that held the American soldiers in their cells – cells that were blessedly empty.
Up – up – up. The two take stairs to get out of the place. The few guards left had taken ahold of the main exits because – as Steve had explained while running, not a drop of sweat marring his perfect face – the prisoners he had freed had stolen the element of surprise from Steve so all was left was to run where there were no guards. And, judging by the smell of smoke, the place was also on fire.
However, Steve had scouted the place earlier, and knew of a safety exit that existed above.
That meant stairs.
Steve had this severely beaten metal shield that squealed whenever a bullet rocketed off the surface. I couldn't see much, but the sound alerted everyone in the burning building to our general direction. Thankfully Steve wasn't the one to sought out fights so most of it was Bucky running upstairs and Steve defending his friend with his shield.
"Steve," Bucky breathes, suddenly stopping, heaving in huge gasps of air. "Who is that?" Steve's sure footsteps stumble to an abrupt stop, and I struggle to open my eyes. I rasp the man's name, not loud enough for anyone but Bucky to hear. He turns his head, opening his mouth to ask me something, but the man cuts him off.
"Hello, Captain America," says a slick, German accent. "So glad we could meet. Having fun on those stages?" Red Skull smirks, and his eyes flicker to Bucky.
"I see you've found Zola's experiment." He doesn't tell who was the experiment so both Steve and Bucky assumed that he was talking about the dead body hanging off Bucky's back – even though I was experimented on, Bucky was too. "But I don't care, you can have it back. That is, if you get out of here."
The energy to focus on the conversation was slipping. Their voices faded away, my eye sight wavering, everything blurring into dull grey blacks, a small flame of bright red flickering before it snuffled out.
"Whoa whoa whoa, Lyall," Bucky mutters, voice too close and loud to ignore. "Don't die here. We're almost out."
"I need energy…"
"Energy?" Bucky was momentarily confused, but Steve called him back. Words floated by and Bucky was running and a jarring sensation that shocked the fragile wound patch up on my stomach and opened it again.
"Ow," I say as loud as I can, and finally pass out.
[x]
"Lyall is alive," Bucky's voice snaps. "So piss off and leave me and Steve alone."
"… Steve and I, Bucky." Says Steve, pulling a huge breath into his perfect chest. "I am willing to take a body back to camp, but are you sure that she's alive?"
"I saw her intestines being ripped out, tongue cut off and her leg severed. You saw that she had intestines, she spoke to me several times and you can see that her leg has heal and is even growing back!"
A heavy air hangs over the area – a tent? Shelter made out of wood? A hollow tree? It's hard to tell when my eyes refuse to open. Bucky shifts and rests a hand on my chest. I take in as much as I can, which would be barely enough to sustain Steve in all his super soldier form.
"Yeah, she is." The relief in his voice is easy to detect. "She just –"
"Breathed." Steve nearly launches to rest his hand beside Bucky's. I try again, using the energy that had been stored. His hand vibrated, and I really, really, really wanted to open my eyes but I couldn't. It was too exhausting, a feeling that I was too scared of to knowledge.
Why – am I so tired? Why can't I sit up and look around? Why is it taking so long for my body to heal? Why can't I give them a sign of yes, I am alive? I'm – I'm scared. What if I'm forever stuck like this? What is Zola stunted my growth? What if I can't stay with Victor?
What if I grow old?
I don't want that I DON'T WANT THAT I WANT TO SEE VICTOR I WANT TO SEE NICK WHY WON'T MY BODY HEAL?
My hands tighten momentarily, and a small flame grows inside me. Suddenly a reserve of energy that I didn't know existed before opened up, pouring out, filling my body to the brim. My stomach tingled, my leg aching from the sudden growth it is experiencing.
Bucky talks to me calmly as Steve sits back in shock, but I ignore every word, focusing the influx of energy towards my injuries and healing them. I discover wounds in places that I hadn't noticed, like a strange blow to my head, my uterus torn out, and an odd three organs missing.
First was the blow to my head – which I discovered cleared up my thoughts exceptionally – and then the mess that was my stomach. Once that was smooth as a new born baby, the remaining energy was continuously sent towards my leg.
Regenerating limbs took time. Much like when Deadpool cut off his head and a baby version grew back, mine took hours to return to its usual state. However, it didn't grow a baby version of the leg – rather it built it back, square inch by square inch of skin, bone, muscle from the thighs, then knee then ankle and then foot.
There was no more discussion of my wellbeing since then, but the feeling that creeped in was the same whenever or wherever I display my ability – who is she? Is she even human?
Stay away. We don't want you here.
I didn't bother trying to sit up or open my eyes. It wouldn't do the company any good. They clearly didn't want me. I wasn't going to bother.
[x]
Although there was tanks for injured men, Bucky didn't trust the rest of the men to take care of me – a "dead" body – so continuously I hung off the back of the soldier. Steve sometimes took the job, although Bucky seemed to be more physically fit than any man would be being experimented on.
Well, Zola had experimented on Bucky…
Steve seemed to know where he was leading the pack; as the days went past more and more soldiers from Europe and the local area recognised the major landmarks. Sometimes we trudged past small villagers, but Steve didn't stop, saying that an army camp was close enough for everyone to rest.
There were no army on the road, until I realised that Steve was leading us around any signs of approaching traffic, which was a demonstration to his perfect healing.
It took a few weeks – shockingly nobody died from exhaustion or starvation. Steve knew exactly how to ration food and water, knew when to take stops while maximizing the distance they covered every day.
None of the soldiers seemed to realise that Steve wasn't the highest ranking officer, people scoring from major to colonel. I had lost my General badge somewhere on the Western Front in World War 1, so nobody had any idea.
Then after nearly a week – only told by snores of Bucky when he sleeps at night – Steve announces that they would be back at the nearest American camp within the next day or two. He seemed a little antsy, shifting whenever he sat – and that was very rarely – tapping his fingers against his arms and even creating a little beat on his metal shield that nearly drives Bucky nuts.
"Stop it," Bucky groans, gently tugging Steve's shield to the floor. "Why are you so worried?"
"…Colonel Phillips is going to kill me." He grumps, sitting down next to Bucky, scowling at the smoldering fire coals. His thick hunk of a body obstructs the direct path between the fire and I, stealing the source of heat, as faint as it was this far from it. "I left without his command – in fact, against it."
"If they penalty you, I'll drag you out of that camp and we can live our life as hermits in the European wild." Bucky snarks, his utensil clacking against whatever metal container he has in his hand. He pauses then –
"I wouldn't think they'd punish you." He murmurs, and he shifts, the gravel under his boots grinding against each other. "It's cold; you're an oven. Keep me warm, Captain America."
He says Steve's stage title like it was a small inside joke they shared between them. Steve laughs, and gravel is moved again. Bucky's breath is the first to even out and Steve's isn't far behind.